Chapter II: Part 2

This is to warn all honest men to beware of No. 007 Field Company, R.E., known to its victims as "Chaucer's Gang," the most conscienceless crew of body-snatchers and common thieves in all the B.E.F.

I am myself no fastidious precisian, being in a Labour Company, but there are limits--or should be. My own particular grouch against them started at Ripilly-sur-Somme. They, being skilled Royal Engineers, were clearing undergrowth and putting up huts in Ripilly woods for a division due to arrive, and my scorned rabble were unloading the huts in sections from barges at Ripilly canal wharf and loading them on to lorries for transport to the woods. Chaucer and his Royal Engineers were living on the spot--Ardennes waving o'er them her green leaves and so forth--and we were in rest billets (loud roars of raucous laughter) in Ripilly village, the least sanitary spot in the whole war zone.

Chaucer wouldn't let us stay with him in the huts--said the Chief Engineer was very keen on men living next their work. But between Ripilly and the canal wharf was an ideal spot. The chalk downs sloped steeply to the river, and halfway down was a bit of a level plateau just the size for a couple of huts. South aspect; good fishing and bathing; a home from home. The woods hid it from view above and the roadside poplars from below. It was a truly desirable building site.

We had a hurdle-maker in our company, so I gave him a brace of light-duty men as apprentices and they built a little hut of wattle and daub. It had a nice rural appearance and was warm, but it leaked in wet weather, and the more I thought of Chaucer lying dry under his felt roofs the worse I felt about it. So I had a chat with my sergeant at the wharf, and the long and short of it was that two walls and one roof got delivered by mistake at the desirable building-site.

We worked late that night, and next day had thirty men in residence, with one end of the long hut partitioned off for Simmonds, my subaltern, and myself.

So far so good. I began to think about making another mistake and getting a second hut, but that evening Chaucer came sliding down over the steep turf, visibly annoyed.

"Where did you get this hut?"

"Found it."

"On Ripilly wharf?"

"Certainly not. I found it down there by the road and had it brought up here for safety. If a lorry had run over it in the dark--"

"Ah, cut it out," he said. "The hut is mine. I found two odd sections in the last barge-load. Any poacher who knew his job would burn the feathers when he cooked the bird. You needn't start to explain about your fool N.C.O., who made a mistake. I keep that sort of N.C.O. myself. _If_ I get an official inquiry about this hut I shall send back official information."

"Right-o! Then come in and have a drink, and don't be official before you need."

That's where I was wrong. I tried to enlist the blighter's sympathy. Showed him round camp, the view, the bathing--everything. When Simmonds came up from the river with a string of roach Chaucer admitted it was a truly _bon_ billet.

Next day he called again with one of his subalterns, a creature called Gubson, who went down to the river to watch Simmonds fish. When he had gone Chaucer told me he had a spare hut.

"Not one of these divisional huts, but a thing we knocked up ourselves. We've nearly finished our job here, and if it's any use to you you can have it. But mind you, I know nothing about this other hut you've got here. If you're caught with that one your blood be on your own head."

"You're a Christian," I told him, and, Gubson and Simmonds returning, the conference had a drink and adjourned.

Next day I found quite a squad of light-duty men, and sent 'em to dismantle and bring down Chaucer's hut. I admit they rather exceeded instructions, for they brought a lot of things that Chaucer had omitted to mention. However, they said he was there when they took them, so I supposed it was all right. Besides the hut they had two bell-tents, a big tarpaulin, some corrugated iron and expanded metal, some home-made chairs and tables, a water-tank and a field kitchen, with its wheels broken off--a noble lot of loot it was. They worked like beavers bringing it down and getting it in place, and when Chaucer drifted down again at the end of the week all my men were housed there as snug as you please. Finally Gubson presented the camp with a punt he had salved in Sailly village--and there we were, all the pleasures of the Riviera and none of the disreputable company.

We were so pleased with all they had done for us that we suggested they should stay the night and celebrate the occasion. Chaucer said he would be delighted, if we would send to his batman and tell him to bring down his razor and toothbrush. At midnight, when the batman arrived, Chaucer said it was time for bed. And could we give his man a shake-down, please? It was pretty dark, he said, and the fool might lose his way home.

That should have warned me. Chaucer wasn't the man to keep a batman who was a fool.

It must have been about 3 A.M. when I was waked by my man helping Chaucer dress.

"What's the matter?"

"Your fellow says my man's ill."

"What is it?"

"I dunno, Sir," my man said. "'E 's groanin' an' rollin' about an' keepin' all us others awake."

When I got to the men's hut I found Chaucer kneeling beside the sick man, who was holding his head and groaning. All the other men were sitting up and looking on. After a minute or two Chaucer got up and beckoned me outside.

"Look here," he said, "I don't want to scare you, but suppose that chap's got anything infectious. Is there a doctor handy?

"Nowhere nearer than Sailly."

"Well, Gubson tells me they were expecting the M.O. at our camp today. He may have stayed the night. Can you send somebody up to see?"

I sent off an orderly at once, and in half-an-hour a young doctor arrived, and ordered all the other men out of the hut. Then he pulled a gaudy handkerchief out of his pocket, sprinkled it with some stuff out of a small phial, tied it over his mouth and only then began to fiddle about the sick man, feeling his pulse and sounding him.

Then he got up, readjusted his handkerchief-respirator and mumbled that it was cerebro-spinal-something. Spotted fever.

We all got out of that hut in double-quick time, believe me. The doctor was full of orders--half a hundred things to do at once. The man must be strictly isolated. All the contacts--every blessed man who had been in the hut with him--must be placed under supervision. The hut must be put out of bounds. And when he found half the men had gone under the tarpaulin shelter he put that out of bounds too.

We were a full hour trying to separate the contacts; but when the doctor found the cook getting breakfast ready and heard he had been in the sick man's hut he threw his hand in.

"I won't answer for a single one of you," he said; "the place is no better than a pest-house. Throw that breakfast away. It's sheer poison. Clear out, all of you."

It was Chaucer started the panic. I saw him sneaking away up the slope, so I thought it better to make a move too. I didn't ask the doctor where we were to go; he'd have had us all sleeping out on the open grass for a week if I had. So the whole lot of us, half asleep, trekked back to Ripilly village and turned into our old billets again.

* * * * *

It was my Sergeant-Major who told me next day that Chaucer and his gang had taken possession of the Riviera--my Riviera. I went there at once, to find out what it all meant, but they had a sentry at the foot of the slope, who said the camp was infected and no one was allowed there; so I climbed the slopes and looked down from above. Chaucer was smoking outside my pet hut talking to a couple of his subalterns, and a string of men was lined up beside the field kitchen for tea. Close by, the batman, recovered from his illness, was putting a fishing-rod together, and one of the subalterns blew his nose on a gaudy handkerchief which I recognised at once.

I went straight back and told the Town Major of Ripilly that one of the new divisional huts was being occupied by the Sappers. It wasn't cricket, but it was all I could do.

"That's all right," he said. "Chaucer's acting as divisional R.E. He's entitled to one hut. He told me he had been arranging for you to erect it for him."

* * * * *

_Mother_. "WHY, WHAT'S THE MATTER, DARLING?"

_Small daughter (tearfully)_. "OH, MUMS, I DO SO WANT TO GIVE THIS WORM TO MY HEN."

_Mother_. "THEN WHY DON'T YOU?"

_Small daughter (with renewed wails)_. " C-COS I'M SO AFRAID THE WORM WON'T LIKE IT."]

* * * * *

OUR PESSIMISTS.

"Applications are invited from properly qualified persons for
the position of Medical Officer of Health....

The appointment will be from the 1st July, 1919, for the
duration of the War."--_Advt. in Local Paper_.

* * * * *

"Chicks, day old; ready Saturday."--_Advt. in Local Paper_.

It looks like a case of counting before they are hatched.

* * * * *

THE KEY TO FAIRYLAND.

The trees have magic doorways
Down into Fairy-land,
Yet nobody, but only me,
Has time to understand
That if _we_ knew the magic,
If _we_ could work it too,
We could creep down to Fairy-town
And do as fairies do.

The keys are four-leaved clovers;
They're not so hard to get--
Just creep about and search them out,
And don't mind getting wet;
But oh! I wish the fairies
Weren't _quite_ so secrety;
I've tried and tried, but _still_ they hide
The key-holes for each key.

* * * * *

FROM GRAVE TO GAY.

"The Burial Board resolved that tenders be obtained from the
various bands in the district with a view to holding concerts
in the Queen's Gardens during the summer months."

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

"CYRANO" MOVES TO DRURY LANE.

SIR THOMAS BEECHAM, having been translated to another place, has made way for _Cyrano_ and his nose, which now finds more room to turn round in. I had not seen Mr. LORAINE on the more congested stage of the Garrick. Indeed the last time that I assisted at M. ROSTAND'S play was some twenty years ago in the South of France. It happened that there had recently been a vogue of Musketeer plays in England. Behind my seat was a British Baronet (a recent creation) for whom the French language had little or no meaning. The first and only sign of intelligence that he showed was well on in the performance, at the words, "_Qui est ce monsieur?" "C'est D'Artagnan." (D'Artagnan_ then disappears altogether).

"Another of these damned Musketeer plays," said the Bart.; "I'm off!" And he went.

I am not sure that, even in English, it would have been just the play for his taste; but that London has plenty of people who can appreciate it may be seen by the way in which Mr. LORAINE can hold the great auditorium under the spell of its romance. Without an effort he endears to us the defects of his hero's Quixotic qualities, and makes his very deformity contribute to the triumph of his heroic _panache_. Even such of the poet's prolixities as survive a very careful pruning of the text are made to seem essential to the self-expression of character.

Mr. LORAINE is happy in his book, for the clever rendering made by Miss GLADYS THOMAS and Miss MARY GUILLEMARD reproduces both the spirit and the letter of the poem. And from his cast he gets all the support that he needs. True, he needs very little. He fills the stage, and the other characters--notably the colourless _Christian de Neuvillette_--are little more than his foils. Miss STELLA CAMPBELL, as _Roxane_, failed, at times, to convey a sense of overwhelming passion either for the body of _Christian_ or the soul which she imagined it to contain; but she was always a gracious figure and her voice was gentle. Perhaps Mr. LORAINE owed most to his scenic artists, Messrs. DULAC and JOHN BULL, who gave of their best. There was attraction too in the very names of Arras and Bapaume, as well as in the thought of the part that our _Cyrano_ of to-day has played against a ruder foe than the Spaniard. And was I wrong in tracing a hint of other experiences gained at the front, when Mr. LORAINE nearly turned up his false nose at the mention of "military wit."

The part offers little scope for humour. _Cyrano_, with all his generous impulses, is too self-conscious for that. But in each of his moods and phases--bravado, sacrifice, acceptance of the inexorable pathos of things--Mr. LORAINE had got at the heart of the man. A very brave and inspiring performance.

O.S.

* * * * *

"I'VE BIN AT ME UNION, CONSIDERIN' THIS 'ERE STRIKE."

"WELL--YOU CAN STAY DOWN THERE AN' CONSIDER THIS 'ERE LOCK-OUT."]

* * * * *

HOW HISTORY IS WRITTEN.

From reports of Mr. ASQUITH'S speech at Newcastle:--

"He [Lord French] has taken an unusual, and I think an
unfortunate, course (cheers), giving to the world at this
stage what must be an _ex parte_ narrative of what happened
under his command."--_Times_.

"He has taken an unusual, and as I take it, an unfortunate course in giving to the world what must of necessity be an expert narrative of what happened under his command."--_Daily Herald_.

* * * * *

"BEAUTY IN HOUSE BUILDING.

LET US LOOK AS THOUGH WE HAD WON THE WAR."--_Daily Mirror_.

Who said we hadn't?

* * * * *

THE DAY.

At last the great day has arrived; in less than half an hour I shall be at the church. Heavens! what excitement. And yet I suppose most girls have had to undergo the ordeal, if one may so describe it, at some period of their life.

The magic church is not far distant and from my room I can hear the merry pealing of the bells. In the garden the birds are singing as they have never sung before. Truly life is a beautiful poem on such a day as this.

But I have really little time to dwell on these things, for am I not the centre of creation itself, the hub around which the whole household revolves in one wild bewildering whirl of ecstasy? How can one think when one is surrounded by a triumphant mother, a couple of adoring and not envious sisters, a critical brother and a doting father?

But then why should I think? Why use my brain at all when all the thinking that needs to be thought is being thought for me? Goodness, how my poor head reels. If only I could sleep. Ah, yes, that is what I could almost wish for at this moment--sweet, soothing, refreshing sleep.

But it is not to be; the house is just a great tearing pandemonium of joy. Hark! What's that? A motor horn? Yes, yes, a taxi is at the gate. Now another has glided forward and waits expectantly for the central figure--myself.

"Well, darling," murmurs my father, "it's high time we were off. Wouldn't do to be late today, you know." And he laughs proudly.

Can I describe the journey to the church? I can, but I will spare you. Enough to say that I carry myself with dignity. Whether I do so in the vast solemn atmosphere of the church I am unable to say, though I will confess to a feeling almost of awe.

In deep silence we move down the aisle. The service begins. Can I repeat it? I fear not. But one passage there is which stands out prominently from the rest. It is in the form of a demand made by the clergyman. Looking steadily at my father, he exclaims:--

"_Name this child_."

I am roused to a fresh interest, and with fast-beating heart I await my father's answer. It comes as a bombshell to my sensitive ears:--

"_Armisticia Beatty Zeebrugge!_"

And I believed that only Germans could wage war on helpless babes.

* * * * *

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

_(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)_

Books dealing with life at the Front have naturally somewhat slackened in volume of late. Perhaps this accounts for some part of my interest in _Pushed and the Return Push_ (BLACKWOOD). But more must be put down to the lure of the subject, and most of all to the admirable way in which the writer, who chooses to be known as "QUEX," has dealt with it. Briefly, the book is a record of the two great sensational movements of 1918, and of the writer's experiences as an officer of an Artillery Brigade in the retreat forced upon the Fifth Army by the break through of the Germans on March 21st, and subsequently in the return push which broke the Hindenburg Lino and ended the War. The publishers say that this is the only account yet written by a participator in these happenings; I hardly think that any will appear more vivid and moving. The amazing sequence of the events with which it deals gives to the book the thrill of arranged drama, in which disaster is balanced by the triumphant ending. However unskilfully told, such a history could hardly fail of its effect; by good fortune, however, it finds in "QUEX" a chronicler able to do it justice. Simply and without apparent effort he conveys the suspense of the days before the attack (a couple of chapters here are as breathlessly exciting as anything that I have yet read in the literature of the War), the long trial of the retreat, and finally the retaliation and the ever-quickening rush forward from victory to victory that makes last autumn seem like an age of miracles. It is essentially a soldier's story, at times technical, throughout filled with the unflurried all-in-the-day's-work philosophy that upheld our armies in every change of fortune. For many reasons a volume that should find its place in any collection of the smaller histories of the Great War.

* * * * *

Until I had very nearly reached the end of _The Cormorant_ (MELROSE) I could not, though I tried, make up my mind as to which of three possible claimants was filling the title-role. When I did discover the "Cormorant's" identity with a fourth person quite unsuspected, I found myself just a little inclined to wonder whether perhaps the authoress had not had the mystification of her readers as her real aim when she chose her title, and merely introduced a pleasant American, who called people names with a sincerity few of us would dare to imitate, in order to justify her choice. But all the same I am not going to tell her secret here, for I feel that much will be added to the interest of a very pleasant book if readers will pause long enough at the end of chapter sixteen to try to "spot" the "Cormorant" and--as I hope and believe--guess wrong. Miss ANN (or ANNE, for her publishers seem to be in two minds about it) WEAVER has compounded her tale from the somewhat ordinary ingredients of a heroine, as aggressively red-haired as only red-haired heroines can be; a philandering but finally faithful hero; a worthless but charming married man, and a number of less important people, many of whom are well drawn, though I think that I have met that scheming and malicious French maid before. _The Cormorant's_ lines are chiefly laid in country houses of the more delightful sort and the story is well told. When Miss WEAVER invents a more distinguished plot she should do something very good indeed.

* * * * *

Mr. HORACE BLEACKLEY'S _Anymoon_ (LANE) is a reasonably diverting because superbly improbable account of England under the new Socialist Commonwealth, with _Joseph Anymoon_, a highly popular Cockney plebeian, as President. Follows an era of feminist control and a Bolshevist revolution contrived by one _Cohen_ (with the authentic properties, "Crimson Guards" and purple morality), and finally the Restoration through the loyalist Navy, the complacent _Anymoon_ consoling himself with the reflection that if he was a failure as CROMWELL he can at least be a success as General MONK. Perhaps the wilder critics of the present order have no reason to complain if their impatient generalisations are marshalled, however disingenuously, against them. But the judicious folk of every school who are now trying to take their bearings may wonder if much is to be gained by putting up and knocking down such flimsy figures of straw. Mr. HAROLD COX contributes a rather too solemn preface, which labels this otherwise irresponsible novel as a serious tract. I rather think that the engaging spectacle of the biographer of WILKES and the editor of _The Edinburgh_ (the author of _The New Republic_ surely somewhere in the offing) crouching among the headstones with a candle in a hollow turnip will make a certain appeal to those with a sense of humour and proportion ... The others may like it even better.

* * * * *

Nothing could be more attractive than the central idea of _The Love Spinner_ (METHUEN), which is to tell the war-time adventures of a little old lady--the good fairy of her circle--whose interest in the heart-affairs of her friends wins her this pleasant if slightly sentimental title. But, ungrateful as is the task of breaking so innocent a butterfly upon the wheel of criticism, I'm afraid I must add that I think Miss CLARA TURNBULL has hardly carried out her purpose with sufficient discrimination. In plain fact she has allowed her sympathies to run away with her. Such a character as _Miss Jessie_, who goes about doing good, and producing incidentally the most benevolent reactions in confirmed misanthropes, demands to be handled with the nicest care if sentimentality is to be avoided. Let me put it that Miss TURNBULL has not always been entirely successful in this respect. Thus, despite some agreeable scenes, the book remains one for the unsophisticated, or for those whose appetite for fictional glucose is robust. There is not very much that can be called plot; what there is concerns itself with the fortunes of _Miss Jessie's_ tenants, the chief objects of her ministrations. In the end an air-raid, of which the details are surely unusual, provides _Miss Jessie_ with the opportunity for a deed of heroism that I am still trying to visualize (her nephew had thrown her down and was protecting her body with his own; but the heroine, seeing this, changed places with her defender "between the flash of the shell's impact and the explosion") and finishes, with an appropriately tearful death-scene, a tale that would have been improved by more restraint in the telling.

In _The Thunderbolt_ (UNWIN) _Georgina Bonham_, at home and amongst her intimates, delighted in small-talk. It flowed in an unceasing stream, particularly when _Dr. Rayke_, her chief adviser and confidant, came to tea and ate his favourite currant-and-sultana cake. Everything, in fact, prepares you for one of the tamest of all tame novels, when suddenly the "Thunderbolt" of the title remembers its attributes and bursts from a clear sky. Thenceforward Mr. GEORGE COLMORE'S book is of a particularly painful character. For the horrors which here accumulate on horror's head I find no adequate excuse, even though the villain of the story is a German.

* * * * *

_Blanche Maddison_, the heroine of _The Obstinate Lady_ (HUTCHINSON), might without any excess of rudeness be called pig-headed. With her case in my mind let me advise women who have married disgusting men to seek whatever shelter the law may give them rather than adopt her persistently cold and aloof manner. I hardly wonder that her husband found her a little exasperating. We all know Mr. W.E. NORRIS as a novelist who can be trusted not only to tell an intriguing story, but also to construct it irreproachably. But here, I think, he has penalised himself with the materials he has chosen. However he sets bravely to work to wipe off his handicap, and very nearly succeeds. If I cannot credit him with complete success it is because the subsidiary tale of love which he gives us is really too anaemic. Yet I can conceive of people so fed up with the makers of blood-heat fiction that Mr. NORRIS'S lukewarm method will afford them a pleasant change.

* * * * *

However cleverly Mr. WILLIAM CAINE may treat his theme, _The Wife Who Came Alive_ (JENKINS) is only another version of the antiquated mother-in-law business. _Doll Brackett_ was a beautiful American girl, and if she had not been idiotically idolised by her mother and could have realised the difference between pounds and pence she might have made an excellent wife for _George March_, of Hampstead, portrait-painter. _Mrs. Brackett_ was not actively hostile to this marriage, but after losing her fortune she began to disapprove of the economy which _March_ preached and tried in vain to practise. Persuaded that her idol was no longer becomingly enshrined, she proceeded to make trouble between husband and wife, and they separated. Then followed a very lean time both for _Mrs. Brackett_ and her daughter, until at last the former made such an outrageous proposal that _Doll_ came to her senses. You will easily believe that this sort of subject offers no very favourable outlet for Mr. CAINE'S particular gifts, but the confidential style in which he tells the story is distinctly engaging, and as a warning to foolish mothers-in-law it is something more than adequate.

* * * * *

_Weary Househunter (absent-mindedly)._ "IT'S RATHER LARGE, BUT PERHAPS I MIGHT BE ALLOWED TO SUB-LET A PART."]